


that old song

by somethingsomething



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingsomething/pseuds/somethingsomething
Summary: Holiday Traditions Remix, 2025





	that old song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaverickSawyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaverickSawyer/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, MaverickSawyer!

first day

“Do you want to get a tree this year?”

Mako looks up from her datapad. Raleigh is, predictably, sitting in a chair on the other side of her desk, feet on her desk, chair tipped back. He’s frowning at a stack of papers in his hands.

“A tree?”

Raleigh looks at her. “Yeah, for Christmas.”

“It is only November.”

Raleigh shrugs.

Mako leans back in her chair and frowns. “Tamsin used to put one up. We didn’t have one for long time after she died. _Sensei_ was just tired, I think.”

Raleigh sets all four legs of his chair back on the ground. “Okay,” he says. He covers her hand with his.

 

second day

A week later, Mako laughs at Raleigh’s face when he comes out onto the balcony of her Sydney hotel room. He’s carrying two cups of coffee, and his hair sticks up in a dozen different directions.

“Jet-lag?” she asks.

Raleigh’s frown deepens as he hands her a cup of coffee. “Season lag,” he says. “It’s so hot here for the beginning of December.”

Mako takes a deep breath of her coffee. “Yes, it is almost as though Sydney is on the other side of the world.”

Raleigh looks deeply offended. He takes a step closer anyway. “The birds woke up too early, too.” A cockatiel screeches nearby, and another answers it. Raleigh sighs and drinks his coffee.

Mako laughs.

 

third day

Neither Mako nor Raleigh are particularly good in the kitchen. Mako accepted this a long time ago. Raleigh…did not.

“No, I’m serious, it’ll work this time,” he says. “The other two were just practice runs.”

Mako raises an eyebrow, but drizzles olive oil over green beans anyway. “Pieces of chicken, yes,” she says. “Whole chickens, no. You have already tried to cook these Cornish hens. I do not think the fire alarms have recovered from those attempts.” She slides the tray of green beans into the oven to hide her smile.

Raleigh scoffs. “Third time’s the charm. We’ve got this,” he says to his chickens. “You and me, together.”

Mako laughs. “I think you will need more practice than that,” she says.

Raleigh looks at her, deeply pained. “I still have a couple weeks,” he says.

Mako rolls her eyes and steals a piece of stuffing.

 

fourth day

Back in February, the U.N. approached Mako with plans to continue the PPDC. Mako accepted. She doesn’t regret the decision come December, but –

“Are you trying to break your keyboard? I think Tendo already said the IT budget is shot for the rest of the year,” Raleigh says. He’s standing in the doorway to her office and is giving her computer a concerned look.

Mako sighs and waves him in. “The U.N. is very concerned with _politics_ ,” she says. She wrinkles her nose at her email.

Raleigh closes the door behind him. “What is it this time?” he asks as he sits in a chair.

Mako leans back in her own chair. “Another email about a commemorative holiday ball.”

Raleigh frowns. “Sounds great.”

“Yes. It is the fourth email today. They wish for us to make a speech reflecting on our year.”

Raleigh’s frown deepens. “Ah. Figures.”

Mako makes a noise of agreement. “We lose our families for them, and they wish for a show of support a year later.”

Raleigh snorts. “Well,” he says. “There’s always Christmas with the family instead.” He stands and places a stack of folders on Mako’s desk. “For when you’re done slaying that monster,” he says with a nod to Mako’s laptop. He reaches across her desk to squeeze her wrist before walking out.

Mako watches him leave. It’s a nice view. Then she sighs noisily and tackles her email.

 

fifth day

Mako wakes up on a cold mid-December day to her phone ringing. She groans and answers it by the fifth ring.

“Hello,” she says.

“So, I don’t know if you noticed, but some of the heating vents are broken. Or clogged. We’re not really sure yet.”

Mako pulls her phone away from her face to look at the screen. Tendo. Four in the morning. She went to bed three hours ago. Behind her, Raleigh reaches above her head to turn on the bunk lights. Mako squints in the light.

“When?” She turns over in bed to look at Raleigh.

“Middle of the night? I only know because I got up to feed the baby and nearly froze a toe walking into the kitchens. Robinson is on duty, but only because the three people ahead of her are out sick. I think she’s a little nervous about being in charge, honestly.”

Raleigh’s hair sticks up. He blinks slowly at her, his face half in the pillow.

“Call Takeda,” Mako says. “He’s the emergency site engineer on duty. And remind Robinson I have full faith in her.”

Tendo probably says something while Mako hangs up, but she’s burrowing back into the covers. She doesn’t even know if Raleigh turns the lights back off.

 

sixth day / seventh day

“I hate Toronto,” Mako says. They’re walking around a pond in a park. She has no idea which one. Raleigh told her, at one point, but she’d been escaping the press around their hotel and hadn’t listened.

Raleigh turns around and laughs at her face. “The cold or the people?”

“The snow,” she says, frowning. She over-exaggerates for the way Raleigh’s eyes crinkle when he smiles.

“Too cold?”

“And wet,” she grumbles. “It’s not meant to be lived in.” She sweeps her hand across the frozen pond. “Look, nothing. Even the swans and _Canadian_ geese leave.”

Raleigh looks over the ice, then back at her. He laughs again. “Yeah, that’s a fair point. If they can’t tough it out, there’s no hope for you.”

Mako scoffs but takes the arm he offers her.

 

eighth day

Mako stares at the milk at the L.A. cafeteria three days later. Raleigh comes up behind her.

“Good to know California is still California,” he says.

“What is it?” Mako asks.

“Milk? I guess?” He shrugs. “No clue why they added gingerbread to organic grass-fed milk, but. Holiday spirit?”

Mako walked further down the cafeteria line. “That is _not_ the holiday spirit.”

“Nah, but that mistletoe is,” he says, and kisses her cheek before Mako can duck away.

Mako smiles at him.

 

ninth day / tenth day

“We could still bail,” Raleigh says low in her ear.

Cameras flash outside the car that took them from the Hong Kong Shatterdome to an upscale function in the city.  
Mako sighed before rolling her shoulders back and tipping her chin up. “Needs must,” she says.

“Best Christmas Eve ever,” Raleigh says right before she opens the car door.

 

Mako makes it through two hours of the function before her head hurts worse than her heels. She doesn’t remember much of her speech.

Raleigh waits at the foot of the stairs as Mako comes off the stage. There’s applause from the dignitaries and politicians, but it doesn’t matter.

“How about Christmas with the family?” he says when she hugs him.

“Please,” she says.

 

eleventh day / twelfth day

The music is pounding from behind the Jaeger bay doors by the time Mako and Raleigh arrive. Mako’s heels are gleefully abandoned in some other hallway.

A round of cheers goes up when the Jaeger bay doors open. Mako and Raleigh cheerfully raise their hands.

 

Her people want a speech as the clock ticks over to midnight (but not that clock, never again that clock).

She stands up on an old piece of tech. Tendo hands her a glass of something that smells like it comes from the Kaidonovsky’s old stock. Tendo lost his bowtie a while ago.

She raises her glass. “To family!” she says.

“To family!” the Shatterdome says.

 

new day

Mako starts the next day sitting on the edge of the Helipad, her boots dangling over the side. The clouds threaten rain.

Mako breathes deeply and uncaps an old bottle of whisky the Kaidonovskies smuggled in, and the triplets hid away. She pours a measure into the water.

“For family,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is wondering where Herc is, he's wandering around the Outback desperately trying not to remember what time of year it is.


End file.
